Surplus and Stitches

For the past several years I have really enjoyed the upland bird season here in the Yakima Valley.  Chasing quail, chukar, and pheasant through the big landscapes of the mountain west is one of my favorite pastimes.  One of things this kind of hunting has in its favor is the relatively low-maintenance nature of it - there is very little stuff one needs to do it.  A gun, some clothes appropriate for hiking, and a vest that can carry shells, maps, water and the like - and the vest should also be orange enough to make you visible to others in the field.

Now, of course, you can go much, much deeper than that into the gentleman-hunter's rabbit hole.  Many thousands of dollars can be spend on nearly any of the above-listed items.  Specialized clothing suppliers wills happily sell you hunting boots for $500 a pair, and "shooting clothing" made by manufacturers like Filson will ready you for the field shoot and the photo shoot....if you have the green to pay for all that orange.  I appreciate the craftsmanship, but I am not possessed of such limitless funds....there must be another way!

After several seasons of some stop-gap designs (strapping orange to my fishing vest, for example) I had enough experience to settle on some specific needs and wants in whatever would become a more permanent replacement.  I pined over some high-dollar strap-style hunting vests like the ones by Filson, or Browning, but couldn't quite get over the price hurdle.  Tempted many times, I was unable, ultimately, to imagine any version of a conversation about the receipt with my wife that ended well.  Some of those imagined conversations, in fact, ended badly...very badly.

So, armed with some design ideas and a slim budget, I was off to the surplus store.  There I found all manner of old army stuff that, when creatively combined, created the foundation for a vest.  What it lacked was a game bag, a place to keep the birds, and enough orange to make it 'legal' in the field.  A quick stop at the fabric store yielded several small patches of fabric that would do the trick.  Equipped with needle and thread, I got to stitching.

The result is a vest I'm pretty excited about.  It incorporates a lot of small features that I have settled on as useful for some of the particular rigors of chasing chukar up and down the rimrock ridges of central Washington, including a water bottle (although the vest would be compatible with my camelback water system as well), and generous pockets for shells.  I have also added a cell phone pouch, and a document bag, something to hold maps, licenses and the paperwork required for hunting on the land of the Yakima Firing Center (the US Military base located near Yakima....which happens to include great chukar habitat).  The game bag has been made water resistant and, lined with rip-stop nylon, should prove durable as well.

The product, as good as it looks now, remains untested.  October 6 marks opening day for quail and chukar on state lands, so its debut is coming soon.  It may not have the panache of its big-money cousins, but I think this homegrown vest will hold its own.

Sportsman's Paradise

Autumn is my favorite season for many reason - pumpkin spice lattes, cool mornings, changing colors, and for the past several years I have happily welcomed the arrival of the upland bird season.  I haven't always been an avid bird hunter, but the last several seasons I have pursued it with relish.  I had grown up hunting...well, to correct that a bit....I grew up walking along on hunts in Idaho as a kid.  We would tromp wearily through the fields, following after men and dogs, often asked to carry dead birds as part of our contribution to the effort.  I spent the school year, as I grew older, in Seattle with the city-side of the family, so bird season faded into memory.

John Napper and Stella - my quail-hunting instructors
in the Arizona high country.

Several years ago I was serving a church in the high desert mountains of Arizona and was re-introduced to bird hunting.  A friend in the church was pretty crazy for quail hunting in the badlands of Arizona, and he gave me a gun on loan for two seasons as I learned to chase Gambel's quail around the sage, cactus, and mesquite of the Prescott area.  For a variety of reasons, I found bird hunting to be the near-perfect way to soak in the local terrain and find rewarding respite from the various stresses of the job I had there.  I became one of the crazies chasing quail through the desert; in fact, I got pretty good at it.

Moving to the Yakima area was a dream come true for an upland bird hunter.  We have quail, chukar, and pheasant all available nearby and the weather in the fall is as close to perfect as one could ask for.  As the season drew closer this year, I decided to share the joy and arranged for a group of local pastors that I know to go clay shooting.  Most of the guys were very new to shooting, so I had to wrangle up a menagerie of borrowed weaponry, shotguns of all shapes and sizes.  I loaded up on ammo, taking advantage of a sale at a local sporting goods store - my cart looked like I was stocking up for a Zombie Apocalypse.  We took some time getting oriented, then ran the guys through several rounds of targets, enough to send them home with bruised shoulders and smelling of gunpowder.  A perfect day!

Dove season opens in September, but it is really just a warmup for the real deal: Opening Day!  This year, the state opened for quail and chukar on Saturday, October 1.  This is my third season here in Yakima and Opening Day has developed into something of a tradition, with a group of 4-5 hunters gathering to hunt quail at the  orchards of one of my congregants.  It is a social hunt, not too serious, but we always see plenty of birds and get a chance to shake the rust off.

This year we saw a ton of birds, and even brought a few to hand.  The dog (Simon) gave some good points, the quail were holding pretty well, an early-season trait that will wear off quite soon as they get more savvy to the hunting routine.  I hung back on some occasions, so I could get some pictures of the crew in action, but I did manage to bring home a half-dozen, and even managed a double on my first day out.  Not too shabby!  The Yakama Nation will open in two weeks, and with that comes access to some of my favorite spots as well as that king of upland hunting: the ringneck pheasant.  But, more than almost anything else, it is the long walks in the beautiful northwest setting that I like the most.  Another hunting season is here - and I couldn't be happier!